An album celebrating the bombing of Afghanistan for lighting up the skies "like the fourth of July" has reached the top of the US charts. It is one of a batch of albums being released in advance of the September 11th anniversary.
Country singer Toby Keith's Unleashed, which sold 338,000 copies in its first week of release, includes the song Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry America), with the line "Man, we lit up your world" and ends with the words "We'll put a boot in your ass/it's the American way".
The album achieved prominence after the television anchor Peter Jennings was reported to have declined to have Keith on a July 4th show because of the nature of the lyrics.
The CD, which shows an empty dog kennel on its cover, has already sold three times as many copies as his previous album, Pull My Chain, and 1.5 million copies have now been rushed out to capitalise on the publicity.
Keith's latest album is dedicated to "The Lord - he is so good to me and mine."
A much anticipated Bruce Springsteen album which also deals with the events of September 11th has just been released and could knock Keith off the top spot, but it adopts a different tone.
One of its numbers, Worlds Apart, is about a love affair between an American and a Middle Eastern Muslim which includes the lines: "We'll let love build a bridge over mountains draped in stars/I'll meet you on the ridge, between these worlds apart." The song Empty Sky contains the words "I want a kiss from your lips/I want an eye for an eye."
Springsteen was previously angry when his song Born in the USA was adopted by conservatives.
There was a wave of songs released immediately after September 11th, most of them either mawkish or hawkish and many artists have avoided writing about the events for fear of being called exploitative. Few have gone public in their opposition to the war.
One who has been outspoken is Michael Franti of the band Spearhead, which recently toured Europe. At the Hollywood Bowl last Sunday, the San Francisco-based singer mocked President Bush's assertion that one had to be "for us or for the terrorists", saying that it was like asking people to choose between McDonald's and Wendy's (another burger chain).
He then condemned all bombing of civilians, whether by terrorists or the military, and dedicated a song to peace.
- (Guardian service)